Privacy settings don't affect Gnome recently-used list.

[Billy Barnes]

Blocking directories or apps, or clearing the history entirely in the Privacy settings pane does not prevent files in those directories or opened by those applications from appearing in the Gnome "Recent Files" list in file open/save dialogs. This second log is stored in "~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel".

While I accept that the activity log manager cannot control the monitoring of each individual program, I expected that it would control the *global* recent files list.

Short term: If there is no way to offer the same control, maybe an option to disable it (writing "gtk-recent-files-max-age=0" to ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini apparently does that) with an appropriate notice. Also, clearing the zeitgeist history should clear the recently-used history.

Noteworthy: in my searches to make sure my bug report was original, I came across a few people who had the complaint about the "Recent Files" list and I saw a number of replies telling them to use the Privacy pane.

[Magnetizer (magnetizer)]

In addition to this, turning "Record Activity" on the privacy settings screen off should also inhibit additions to ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.

At this moment I work around the problem by

sudo chattr +i ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

which inhibits additions to the recently-used file.

You can change this back by

sudo chattr -i ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

so the next item will be added again.

This works but it is cumbersome. It would be nice if the privacy settings could take care of it. Of course, the chattr command has to be run by root which could be a problem for a simple on/off switch.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Jeremy Bicha (jbicha)]

I'm attaching 2 screenshots from GNOME 3.8's new Privacy panel. It would be great if Ubuntu's Security & Privacy panel would include these features also.

[Manish Sinha (मनीष सिन्हा) (manishsinha)]

I guess Usage and History is already merged. Something has to be done for "Purge Trash and Temporary Files"

[Manish Sinha (मनीष सिन्हा) (manishsinha)]

This issue has been solved. For "Purge Trash and Temporary Files" keep an eye on LP #1189313

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package activity-log-manager - 0.9.7-0ubuntu1

---------------
activity-log-manager (0.9.7-0ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - System Settings panel has been renamed to "Security and Privacy"
    - New Security tab (LP: #1189313)
    - Incognito Mode now stops GtkRecentManager logging (LP: #992338)
    - Deleting all history also purges entries in GtkRecentManager
      (LP: #992338)
  * Use dh compat 9
  * debian/rules:
    - Disable multiarch direcctories since the System Settings panel doesn't
      work installed there yet
  * debian/patches/02_update_standalone_title.patch:
  * debian/patches/06_add_unity_dash_privacy.patch:
    - Dropped, applied in new release
  * debian/patches/02_dont_show_nonexistant_log_types.patch:
    - Ubuntu doesn't include data loggers for Email or Webpages
      so don't show them in the Include list.
 -- Jeremy Bicha <email address hidden> Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:17:30 -0400